splitting loss and become the system bottleneck. Splitters with uneven splitting
ratios may be used to improve the overall power margin. However, such
optimization requires stocking nonuniform splitters and is hence difficult to
manage.
2.4.2 Splitting Ratio
Most of the commercial PON systems have a splitting ratio of 1:16 or 1:32.
A higher splitting ratio means that the cost of the PON OLT is better shared
among ONUs. However, the splitting ratio directly affects the system power
budget and transmission loss. The ideal splitting loss for a 1:N splitter is 10
log(N) dB. To support large splitting ratio, high-power transmitters, high-
sensitivity receivers, and low-loss optical components are required. Higher
splitting ratio also means less power left ...